Republicans aghast: Has Newt gone rogue?

Former House Speaker Newton Leroy Gingrich, what happened — to Ronald Reagan’s 11th commandment, to that (fleeting) vow to “stay positive” in your GOP 2012 presidential campaign?
Here’s Sacramento-based GOP consultant Rob Stutzman on Gingrich’s latest moves:“Newt has put on a vest strapped with C4 and he’s running into the middle of New Hampshire to pull the ripcord. It’s a murder-suicide — because it don’t think he’ll grow his category there.”
Tough words, but Stutzman (always a great quote machine) isn’t alone in likening Gingrich to a dangerous character these days.
That’s because the former Speaker has wasted no time drop kicking the Reagan mantra (“thou shalt not speak ill of another Republican”) as soon as the Iowa caucus results were announced Tuesday — putting Mitt Romney in his sights in a way that, well, Democrats can only love.
Gingrich raked Romney as a “moderate Massachusetts Republican, to the left of the majority of Republicans,” who has “very limited appeal” to the party as a whole.
Ouch.
Then he took off after Romney’s attack dogs, the SuperPACS, and warned he will now to “speak the truth” about Romney running up to the Jan. 10 New Hampshire primary.
He all but endorsed Rick Santorum, the former Pennsylvania Senator, and has even suggested they may double team Romney soon.
“We both dislike deeply the degree to which the establishment sells out the American people,” Mr. Freddie Mac (as SF Chronicle columnist Debra J. Saunders quipped) told one conservative radio host.
But let’s be fair: Newt’s not the only one aiming at Romney, who scratched out an eight vote win in the Iowa caucuses.
Santorum’s has now sent an email out calling the former Massachusetts Governor “a bland, boring career politician who will lose to Barack Obama.”
And Jon Huntsman, the former Utah governor, also levelled a haymaker at at Romney on Fox News after the 2008 GOP presidential candidate endorsed him.
“I love John McCain..but another Dole, another McCain, another establishment endorsement..nobody cares.”
Stay tuned for more.